Moonhunter

Chapter 42 .: Soulbreaker :.

.: Chapter 42 :.

Soulbreaker

       Luna gripped the knife tightly in her hand, staring grimly into the mirror. Her mind set, she put down the knife onto the counter and gathered her hair in one hand. She took up the knife again and in one swift movement jerked it upwards from under her hand.

       A flurry of black curls fell limply onto the ground. It was strange looking at them. Something about hair that wasn’t attached to her head seemed off somehow. Like it was dead. She had grown out her hair since her grandfather had died. Her mother and her grandfather had both had black hair. Cutting it had seemed harsh somehow. As if she was giving up that small but significant tie.

       Things were different now.

       She let go of the gathered hair and stared at herself in the mirror. Now her hair was short enough that it just brushed her shoulders. It was still curly but it felt much lighter.

       After she had thrown out the remains of her hair, Luna walked down the hall to the mess.

       “You look pretty,” said Ila, giving her a tentative smile.

       “Thanks.” Luna took a seat next to her and her sister, pulling a plate of food towards her. 

       Ila’s presence here had been a surprise. She remembered the young girl she and Aldric had saved back in Quantolia. Ila Everhart, Quinn’s daughter and Quincy’s sister. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. The way things seemed to connect with each other was almost uncanny. Aldric would be happy to meet her again. The thought had been struck down almost as quickly as she’d thought it. Ila, however young she was, was part of the Shadowhunters. Their secrecy applied to her as well.

       “Your training begins today,” Quincy remarked as they ate.

       “I’m looking forward to it.”

       Three days. That was all the time she had to train and prepare herself. In three days’ time she was to enter the Otherworld with Quincy, seal the gate, and—hopefully—return unscathed.

       Even three days was a risk. In the month she had been recovering, so many Reincarnates had escaped the hold of the Shadowhunters that many of them roamed free. Still, she couldn’t enter the Otherworld without being trained at least some—or so she was told. She wasn’t sure what it was she needed to be trained it, but it was apparently vital to her survival. Dying in the Otherworld wasn’t on her agenda.

       After breakfast, Luna followed Quincy down to the lower training courts, Ila trailing after them absentmindedly.

       The whole place—the mazelike passages and rooms—was simply called that—The Underground. She hadn’t even been told where it was. It might not even have been underground. For what it was worth, though, they traveled so far below that she could only assume that it was. If she had thought the Root was large, it was nowhere the size of this place. It made sense. The Root had only been active for a couple years, whereas the Underground had apparently been there for hundreds of years.

       Quincy seemed to have the same job here as she did back at Hybridea. She took out a knife and jammed it into a slot next to the door, and a passageway opened next to it, taking them inside. She had told Luna that if anyone tried to force themselves inside, the door would open and they would be instantly incinerated by blasting spells.

       “Weapons,” she had replied when Luna asked her why. “All our weapons are here. Knives, swords, bows and arrows, trap scrolls, liquid fire, poisons—you name it. It’s here.”